[Ganzfield 2] Adversary (16 page)

They’d tried to rape me.

I’d acted in self-defense, but almost no one knew that.

Next to me, Trevor stiffened in shock and recognition. He knew these faces from my nightmares. Rage flowed through his mind in blood-red flickers. Seeing them—people who’d tried to hurt me—honored and canonized in an adolescent shrine sickened him. He restrained his urge to rip the pictures off the wall.

Rachel noticed our reactions and gave the pictures a second look. A vague sense of déjà vu touched her, possibly because these boys had appeared in a dream I’d once unintentionally shared with her. She saw the dates of death and made the connection with my arrival at Ganzfield. Something like an accusation began to form in her mind as she looked sharply at me.

Rachel, it was like Michael in the basement.

She physically took a step back. I’d never spoken to her, verbally or mentally, about the night I’d found her there. Her eyes flitted back to the shrine, and then back to me. She recalled the night we’d rescued Trevor—the night she’d seen me kill two people just by thinking them dead. I met her gaze and nodded.

Her glance went to Trevor.
And he knows?

I nodded again.
He’s seen them in my nightmares.

Rachel didn’t envy my telepathic ability
. Sean doesn’t know about…about what Michael did to me.
I was startled by her admission, by her trust in me. I didn’t know we had that kind of friendship. Perhaps this was where it would start.

I turned my attention to Sean. He and Drew were shooting hoops halfway across the enormous space. Their shoes made squeaking noises on the hardwood floor.

Not yet. He’s not ready.

Rachel digested that for a moment then nodded and went to join Sean and Drew.

Maddie
. Trevor’s eyes burned into the shrine. If he’d been a spark, the display would’ve been reduced to ashes by now.

I understood.
I can’t stay in here either
.

I’d rather freeze.

Want to check out the auditorium first?
It’s pretty big.

Just how rich is this school?

Best facility in the state. Or so they always liked to tell us.

We’ll be in the auditorium!
I called into the minds of the others as the doors closed behind us.

*   *   *

Trevor took center stage; the space seemed large enough that he’d avoid damaging anything. I put my own air mattress down along the open spot in the back row, normally used for wheelchairs.

Once I had my gear in place, I went to Trevor. His mind still tumbled with furious intensity. Taking his hand, I pulled him down to sit with me.

I really hated seeing that
.

I swallowed hard.
Me, too.

Halos? Really?

You noticed that, too?

I just want to kill them for what they tried to do.

I know the feeling.
My words felt like acid.

Trevor’s arms were suddenly around me.
Oh, Maddie. I’m so sorry. I didn’t mean to—

It’s okay. I get it.
I laid my head against his chest.
I get you.

I felt the anxiety leave my body, replaced with the peaceful sense I only got from Trevor. His hands stroked my hair, brushing away the tension with his strong fingers. 

CHAPTER 8

The fire alarm woke us both.
Crap
. I sat up on my air mattress, and the chambers made little whishing noises beneath my shifting weight. I looked around the auditorium. What a weird place to wake up; I felt like people could’ve been sitting in the chairs, watching me sleep.
Applauding my performance.

Fortunately, the alarm silenced after a few seconds.

My eyes met Trevor’s.
Do we want to know?
he asked.

I sighed as I rolled out of my sleeping bag. We both knew that one of the sparks must’ve done something and fire trucks were probably on their way. It wasn’t even 6 a.m. Ugh.

We need to get out of here.

We grabbed our gear and met up with the others, heading to the front entrance. Sean and Rachel dripped with pool water and pink-tinted embarrassment. I picked up another piece of new, unwanted information about the mating habits of the North American spark. Apparently, they didn’t just set accidental fires in their sleep—“intense” activity could cause things around them to burst into flames, as well.

Talk about having the hots for someone.
There were now several scorched bleachers next to the pool where Sean and Rachel had been skinny-dipping.

So, do I want to know?
Trevor glanced at Sean and Rachel.

I shook my head.
Not at all.

Three minutes later, we were in my mom’s kitchen. The fire truck had passed us on our walk back to her house. I started the coffee and Rachel grabbed the first shower. The house only has one bathroom; it’s at the top of the narrow staircase that leads out of the kitchen and wraps back on itself halfway up. The single bathroom never had been a problem for my mom and me to share, but the logistics with so many people complicated the situation.

Once the coffee was ready, I grabbed a cup and sat at the kitchen table, staring out the window into the long, open backyard and at the bare-branched trees that lined the back of the property. I tried to force my brain to start working. We needed a plan.

Drew parked himself across from me, setting down his own coffee cup with a ceramic clack. “We need a plan.”

I cracked a smile. “Are you sure you’re not all becoming telepathic? That’s like the third time someone’s said what I was thinking.”

Rachel returned to the kitchen, toweling her still-wet hair. Sean headed up next. Did we have enough towels for everyone? Would there be any left when my turn finally came?

“We need to go in for Matilda and Morris when Isaiah’s not there,” said Trevor.

“I think you’re right.” Rachel turned to me. “Maddie, I want to try something. You can project mentally. Can you send me images of an object you’re familiar with—maybe something in the house here? I’ve never been as good at locating things or people I’ve never seen before. But if you can—I don’t know—project that memory to me, I might be able to use it to locate things.” She was warmer toward me than she’d ever been. Something had changed during that minute in the gym.

“Cool.” Drew grinned.

“You think my mental contact with Isaiah might be enough for you to track him?”
Hmm...
If we could track him, we could rescue the healers much more easily. We’d just wait until he left the estate. Dr. Williamson would find this idea very interesting. I wondered when we might get a chance to tell him about it.

“I think we should try.” Rachel’s face lit up. “You up for it?”

“Absolutely. I think it’s a great idea.” But what image should I send to her? I really wasn’t attached to things. The last time I had felt an intense connection to an object had been—

I concentrated on the memory of a present from my grandmother that I’d cherished as a child. The doll had been designed to be an object that people looked at; it was never supposed to be a plaything. But I’d loved the cool smoothness of the porcelain face, the crisp lace on the delicate dress, and the shiny black paint of the tiny shoes. I’d played with it often—very carefully.

Where was it now? I hadn’t seen it in years. I sent the images to Rachel, giving her as much of the detail as I could—the essence of it.
The starburst of gold from her mind seemed to shoot down through her body and through the floor.

I pulled open the door to the basement. The place had the damp, musty smell of a rarely-used, dark space. I followed the energy-line in Rachel’s mind to the shelves in the corner behind the clothes dryer. A clingy layer of escaped dryer lint covered the blue plastic tubs stacked in the back. The golden thread seemed to disappear into one of them. It shifted with the box as I set it on the dryer.

Forgotten childhood treasures caused a surge of memories—old picture books, stuffed animals, a soccer trophy—”Participant”—from second grade. I unwrapped the doll from a piece of flower-printed flannel. My finger gently brushed against the painted hair and I felt a sad smile slide across my face. I carefully closed the box, sealing my childhood once again in a plastic tub in the basement.

“You did it,” I told Rachel, as I came back up to the kitchen. Of course, she’d already seen that, but the others didn’t know. She nodded but continued to frown. Would we be able to make the leap to tracking Isaiah? If we got it wrong, we might end up dead. Still, it improved our chances of success.

Lost in thought, we returned to the mundane functions of our morning activities. Drew took the next shower; Trevor pulled out a skillet and started making scrambled eggs.

My jaw dropped.
You cook?
How had I not known this?

A few things,
he replied, modestly.

You know this is the last straw
. I leaned up to give him a quick kiss.
You are now, officially, the perfect man.

He laughed.
You might want to wait and taste it first.

Whatever I might’ve said next was swallowed as my mother’s ice-water shock splashed through me.
Someone’s cooking in MY kitchen?
My mother uses food to express love, caring, and generosity. I’d never heard her thoughts in a situation like this.

Oh, crap.
She felt insulted, as though our actions were a rebuke to her for not feeding us properly, therefore accusing her of being cold and unloving.

And then she saw Trevor at the stove.
Is he trying to usurp Maddie’s every affection?

I don’t know what it is that Trevor sees when he looks at people. When I look, I see the changes in their faces. I understand the general emotions behind them—if someone’s happy, or sad, or angry, or afraid—that sort of thing. Maybe I’m emotionally stunted or something, but Trevor sees the same twitch of facial muscles and suddenly comprehends so much more about the person’s emotions from it. It’s really clear if we watch a movie or TV, because then I can’t pick up any mental cues, while he experiences this palette of complex emotions from each character.

So, when my mom came into the kitchen, Trevor’s voice brimmed with apology. “Dr. Dunn, I hope that it’s all right that I started making breakfast. We got up early and didn’t want to trouble you.”

My mom’s eyes flicked from Trevor to me then back. Hostility and propriety waged a turf-war within her
. He’s important to Maddie. He’s good to her. And he even feeds her.
She pulled her face into a tight-lipped smile. I was amused—and a little offended—by her thinking. Was I so incompetent that I’d starve to death without someone making sure I ate?

The house felt over-f as we tried to get everyone breakfast and a shower in a place that was set up to handle just two people. When I finally got a turn in the bathroom, the shower was tepid and only a couple of hand towels remained in the linen closet.

My mom had left for work by the time I’d dried off, dressed, and returned to the kitchen. We crowded around the table. Zack was finishing breakfast. Hannah actually felt slightly ill at being in such close proximity to food so soon after waking.

“Maddie’s got a plan.” Drew broke the silence. All eyes turned to me.

“Not completely. Rachel may have found a way to track Isaiah. I think we can handle the security at the Peapack house if he’s not there.”

“Why are you so scared of this guy?” asked Zack.

I had the sudden realization that he hadn’t been at Ganzfield in December. He hadn’t heard Dr. Williamson explain Isaiah’s history when we’d first learned he was still alive.

“He’s a telepath who can kill people with his mind, like Maddie can.” Drew explained.

Zack examined me with a new level of intensity, as though trying to see some visible sign of this lethal ability in me. Again, I picked up nearly nothing from his thoughts, which was frustrating—and a little creepy, like he was just a shell of a real person. But we had more important things to worry about right now.

“The main problem is that Isaiah has a much larger telepathic range than I do.” They all needed to know exactly what we were dealing with. In my opinion, they weren’t nearly scared enough of Isaiah. “According to Dr. Williamson, the last time anyone from Ganzfield had contact with him, Isaiah could read thoughts from more than three hundred feet and kill at more than forty. That’s about three times further than my range. I also need line-of-sight to blast someone. He doesn’t. So, if we go in when he’s there, he’ll feel us coming—like he did yesterday—and we’ll all be dead before I can get anywhere near him.”